1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the transmission of electronic messages over computer networks, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for managing and manipulating a plurality of electronic messages on the basis of pre-determined criteria.
2. Background of the Invention
During the past decade, electronic mail messages (“email”) have become an indispensable tool for facilitating business and personal communications. Through computer networking systems such as local-area networks (“LAN”), wide-area networks (“WAN”), and the world-wide web (“WWW”), network users can send and receive notes, messages, letters, etc., to communicate with others who are in the same office or perhaps in remote locations across the world.
For a variety of reasons, many email users typically maintain email accounts with multiple email service providers. For example, a user may have a business email account, a personal email account with a paid service provider, and a personal email account with a free email service provider. Moreover, users may have email accounts for use with interactive paging systems or other handheld electronic messaging devices (e.g., personal data advisor, wireless telephone, etc.). Typically, each email service provider will assign a unique email address to each subscriber of the service. The email address generally corresponds to the user's account on a email host managed by the service provider. As known in the art, one or more email hosts may be used to process inbound email while one or more different email hosts may be used to process outbound email. Alternatively, the same hosts could be used for processing both inbound and outbound email messages. In the present example, although only a single email host is shown for each network, it is to be understood that multiple email hosts may be used in actual implementation of an email network.
FIG. 1 shows examples of common service providers typically employed by email users for sending and receiving email. For example, the user may have one or more accounts with one or more email service providers directly connected to Internet email network 10, such as e.g., a service provided via email host 12. Such accounts are generally accessible via any computer or network in communication with Internet email network 10. Computers on Internet email network 10, e.g., email host 12 or computer 14, may be in communication with each other and with computers on other networks, such as Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) network 20, wireless network 30, interactive paging network 40, or private network 50. Some email service providers offer purely Internet-based email services. Such services are accessible to subscribers already having connectivity to the Internet. For example, a user on computer 14, already connected to Internet email network 10, may subscribe to email services hosted on email host 12. The user in this case may be assigned an email address such as: john@emailhost12.com. In addition to using computer 14, the user may access his or her email via other computers, such as, e.g., computers 24 or 54 shown in FIG. 1. Typical examples of such Internet-based email service providers include, e.g., Hotmail.com, Yahoo.com, and the like.
As noted above, the user may have multiple email accounts through multiple service providers. For example, in addition to the account on email host 12, the user may have an email account on email host 22 on ISP network 20. In the present example, the user may be assigned an email address such as john@emailhost22.net. As with the Internet-based email services, email services provided by ISPs are generally accessible from any computer on the Internet. For example, the user may access email via computer 24, connected to ISP network 20, or via computers 14 or 54 on Internet email network 10 and private network 50, respectively.
As shown in FIG. 1, the user may have more specialized email accounts delivered via other networks. For example, the user may send and receive email via wireless network 30 and email host 32. Wireless devices, e.g., telephone 34 or personal digital assistant (“PDA”) 36, may be used to send and receive email to or from other wireless devices on wireless network 30 or other email systems connected via Internet email network 10. The user may also have an email account on interactive paging network 40 and associated email host 42. The user in this case may use interactive pager 44 to send and receive email to any other Internet email address. Finally, the user may have an email account on private network 50 hosted on email host 52. The email service provider in this case could be, e.g., the user's employer and the email messaging system hosted on email host 52 could be a proprietary email application server. Moreover, email accounts hosted on email host 52 may only be accessible using a computer directly connected to private network 50 and may require a proprietary client application running on computer 54.
Users typically are assigned different email address for each individual email account. For example the user may have email addresses: jdoe@emailhost32.wireless.com, jdoe@emailhost42.paging.net, and john_doe@emailhost52.work.com corresponding to wireless network 30, interactive paging network 40 and private network 50, respectively. As described more fully below, such specialized email services typically are not accessible from any computer on the Internet.
A problem for users having such multiple email accounts is that there may be different hardware, software and communications systems requirements for accessing the email stored on each account. For example, some email service providers allow users to access their email via any computer connected to the Internet using a variety of suitable email client programs. Suitable client programs may include web browser client applications, such as applications available from Microsoft Corporation or Netscape Corporation, or other applications using suitable email communications protocols. Commonly used email communications protocols include, e.g., Post Office Protocol (“POP” or “POP3”) or Internet Message Access Protocol (“IMAP” or “IMAP4”). Other email service providers, may require proprietary software such as, e.g., Lotus Notes, or Groupwise. In addition to different software requirements, there may be other barriers for managing and accessing email on multiple accounts using a single interface. For example, private networks may allow access to email services only via certain communications channels, such as, e.g., a direct dial-up network connection to a private network comprising the email host, or only from computers within a defined physical perimeter. Also, an email service provider may only offer access to email accounts via special hardware, such as a wireless telephone or interactive pager.
A problem therefore exists for users having multiple email accounts because access to each email account using a single device may not be possible. One method used to get around this problem has been to set up automatic forwarding procedures from each account to a central account. Using this method, the user need only ensure access is available to this central account to have access to all of his or her email. This method has numerous drawbacks, e.g., there is little or no segregation of the user's email making it more difficult to separate work accounts from personal accounts; depending on the account used to receive all email, attachments may not be readable; and in some cases, the user is identified as the sender of the email making it more difficult to identify and prioritize the email. Another drawback is that the user must have access to the central account any time he or she wishes to review email messages. However, users may not always know in advance where they will be located and what type of email access will be available.